Spain is becoming an authentic mecca of data centers. Uruguay has some lessons about it

Spain is fashionable Between the Big Tech. Practically all have chosen our country to Create new data centers. Investments are notable in different communities, but Aragon is undoubtedly One of the ones that has bet most of these facilities, but there are (at least) a problem.

The water.

This is what a reportage from El País in which we talk about the risks that these new data centers raise Not only in Spain, but in other countries such as Mexico or Chile, where there are also strong investments of this type.

Aragon tends a red carpet to Amazon

In the case of Spain, it lends itself especially to what has happened in recent months in Huesca, where Amazon already had three data centers for its AWS platform (in the Burgo de Ebro, Villanueva de Gállego and the Phylus polygon in Huesca Capital), but Project new one in Walqa. The company announced last year an investment of 15.7 billion Ed dollars in the region between 2024 and 2033.

This project raised quite controversial at the beginning of the year. It was then that the residents of the Rural neighborhood of Cuarte began to receive letters Notifying them of an expropriation of land next to the Walqa Technology Park. Among the concerns of these neighbors was the layout of a New high voltage electric line that crossed the townin addition to the high consumption of water resources.

The neighbors met with Amazon representatives in February and finally managed to make the technology deviant that layout of the high voltage line outside the town. Amazon too reached an agreement to finance infrastructure to supply water to cuarte and other populations thanks to new channeling works from the San Julián de Banzo spring.

The energy problem is still striking. These data centers, to which the one who projects one in La Cartuja, in Zaragoza, will consume 10,800 GWH, a huge figure that in fact exceeds the consumption of electricity throughout the province in 2024, which It was 10.54 GWh. To solve that problem the company has paid 1.5 million euros to expand the electricity grid to all your data centers.

But Water consumption is even more remarkable. Carlos López, a member of Ecologists in Action in Aragon, explained in the country how Amazon will install several wells inside their plots to extract water from the subsoil and thus refrigerate the equipment.

It is estimated That these data centers will consume more than 755,000 cubic meters of water a year to refrigerate equipment, but according to López there will be no control and “it will not be able to demonstrate how much water they will extract.” A Amazon spokesman clarified in that report that these wells “are subject to regulatory supervision” and are raised as a reserve water source.

The company already indicated this year that it is using 48% more water of what I expected for a simple reason: The heat. It remains to be seen, of course, what happens when these centers are operational: it will be then when those energy and water consumption and their real impact on Aragon can really be valued, both for the consumption of their citizens and the rest of the industry – and especially the irrigation – as in the case of the environmental impact.

That makes it very difficult value the true return of this type of projects for countries such as Spain. Although it is true that during its construction employment is generated, the operation does not usually require so many positions.

In the recent data center project that Meta is creating in Talavera de la Reina (Toledo), it is expected that some 5,000 jobs for its construction will be created. However, when it is operational target will use about 250 professionals for its management and maintenance.

Documents obtained by the country seal that in October 2021, in the three data centers that existed in Aragon “the total direct employees in each of the three centers in Aragon did not exceed twenty at that time.” That red carpet with which some autonomous communities are receiving these investments can end up giving many dislikes.

A similar case: Uruguay

Everything seemed promising in the new data center project that Google wanted to install in the Science Park, in the Uruguayan department of Canelones, attached to Montevideo.

This data center, the second of the company in Latin America, It began to build In August 2024 with an investment of more than 850 million dollars. However, the project has been surrounded by an important controversy since its inception.

TO Daniel Penaresearcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of the Republic (Uruguay), Something scaled him in that project of the searches giant. In July 2022 this expert analyzed the project that Google presented, but realized something important: At no time were details about water consumption or energy that would impose said data center.

The Uruguayan Ministry of Environment denied access to that data, and in December filed a lawsuit With the help of lawyer Carolina Neme. Months later Pena could access the information and discovered that in a first stage the data center will need 3.8 million liters of water per day (3,800 cubic meters). In the second that requirement was bent: it would need 7.6 million liters of water (7,600 cubic meters). But not any type of water.

Drinking water.

Pena said that the water needs by that data center were “considerable.” The average monthly consumption of a home for three or four people is 15 cubic meters, which means that the data center raises consumption equivalent to that of about 55,000-60,000 people a day.

Google ended up modifying several aspects of the project, and among them that of that use of drinking water. The company ended obtaining permission To build it, when among other things he pointed out that instead of using drinking water, he would use a call -based cooling system Chillersclosed circuits that recirculate the water and do not waste it, which significantly reduces its consumption.

It should also be noted that there are also evaporation cooling systems that do not need drinking water and that can work perfectly with recycled water, such as the recovered of other industrial processes. Even so, the water used must have low salinity and mineralization so as not to damage the equipment with corrosion or sediments.

Image | AWS

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